


Sherlock, You're Having A Nightmare (Reader Insert)

by LVE32



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 221B Baker Street, 221B Ficlet, Accidental Cuddling, Best Friends, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cute, Cute Sherlock Holmes, Domestic Fluff, Domestic Life at 221B Baker Street, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Female Protagonist, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Forehead Touching, Friendship, I'll continue if you want me to, Innocence, Late Night Conversations, Late at Night, Male-Female Friendship, Morning Cuddles, Mutual Pining, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Pining, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Pre-Relationship, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive, Roommates, Sherlock Holmes Has a Nightmare, Sleepy Cuddles, Touch-Starved, Touching, Touchy-Feely, Vulnerable Sherlock, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24650569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LVE32/pseuds/LVE32
Summary: Y/N---who is renting the spare bedroom in 221B---is awoken in the night by sounds of distress.
Kudos: 47





	Sherlock, You're Having A Nightmare (Reader Insert)

**Author's Note:**

> This is just some random cute friendship thing I wrote a while back. Lots of cuddling, very pure, enjoy :-)

Someone was screaming.

Y/N had first become aware of it whilst still asleep---a distant note of terror, muffled like a shout underwater, a faded echo resonating around her sleep-clouded head.

Slowly she woke, reluctantly surfacing from REM cycle and into reality.

Fully awake now, and having assumed she had simply dreamed it, Y/N opened her eyes groggily, blinking blindly in the dark.

 _'How strange,'_ she contemplated ' _that the human mind wants us to sleep, and then, when we finally manage to, it wakes us up again'._

But the sound hadn't been a fiction of her imagination, couldn't be, because she could still hear it. It had grown progressively clearer, its image sharpening as if a lens was bringing it into focus as she entered consciousness.

Throwing off the covers, Y/N leapt from her bed, bare feet already at a run as they hit the carpet. Knowing how to navigate her cosy London apartment by heart, she felt her way to the source of the noise like a blind man, instinct and muscle memory telling her when to reach for the door handle, where exactly it was she needed to reach for it, etcetera.

The sound lead Y/N from her own bedroom, soft carpet turning to cool linoleum as she reached the hallway.

Blood already thick with adrenaline from the knowledge that someone is in distress, her heart seemed to have trouble beating when she realised she was outside Sherlock's room.

The flat had fallen silent, the shouts had ceased, only to be replaced with uneven, erratic, soft whimpering. Sherlock's bedroom was definitely the source.

Y/N stood outside his door for a good few seconds, shifting from foot to foot, debating whether she should go inside. It wasn't just the idea of invading his privacy. Had Sherlock been screaming, still, Y/N---although she was ashamed to admit it---may not have pushed his door open. Something that could rip screams from the detective is something Y/N didn't want to encounter. What could possibly cause him such discomfort? Was someone attacking him? She'd heard no signs of a struggle, nothing to cause her to think there was an intruder within the apartment. That unknown, the lack of indication as to what she was dealing with, only made Y/N all the more hesitant.

Now, though, now that the sounds resembled more a wounded animal than a man in peril, something in her broke. Forgetting that the thing that had made him shriek with genuine terror could still be in that very room, Y/N pushed the door open.

All the lights were off, the air surprisingly still.

Y/N had seen the inside of Sherlock's room before, knew where to feel around for the bedside light switch, and clicked it on.

She'd closed her eyes, almost frozen for fear of what scene may lay in front of her. Had her imagination not been drunk on sleep, and had her every nerve not been swamped in anxiety-chemicals, she may have thought up theories as to what may be waiting on the other side of her closed lids. If the sun had been up, her mind alert and switched on, Y/N would have heard Sherlock scream, thought 'someone killed him', before proceeding to experience some kind of aneurysm.

She opened her eyes.

As far as she could tell, nothing about his room was out of place. His books still stood to attention in neat rows on their shelves. The stationary atop his desk was still compartmentalised in pots and cases, his writing paper stacked at it's usual right angle to the left corner. His bedside table, wardrobe, and chest of draws is the correct way up. The room was empty, apart from the two inhabitants of the flat, the window still closed against the harsh November winds outside.

Sherlock was asleep in bed, the sheets knotted about his lean frame, but apart from that...everything looked ordinary.

Y/N felt her muscles slacken.

Sherlock whined again, writhing, reminding Y/N of the ants that would get into the break-room cupboards at one of her old jobs. The cleaners dealt with them by setting poison out, the chemical resembling innocent grains of sugar which the ants naively consume, then lay twitching as the toxin takes effect. Sherlock was twitching in such a way now, his limbs moving only slightly with the restraint of his own blankets.

With horror, it suddenly occurred to Y/N that he could have been poisoned, just like the ants, and she reached out to shake his shoulders---

but stopped herself. She recognised this.

He wasn't convulsing.

He was dreaming.

First of all, she thought, what an odd thing it was to see him unconscious.

Y/N had only witnessed the detective at his most vulnerable once before; when he'd fallen asleep opposite her in a cab. He'd worked a long case that involved running several blocks, and a sleepless night. He'd been relaxed then, his lanky body flopping against the door like a pile of old clothes, head lolling lazily against the window. Strangely at peace. 

He didn't look like that now, though. A muscle feathered in his neck as his teeth clenched, the sheen covering his forehead reflecting the soft glow of the bedside lamp like street lights in a rain puddle.

Nightmares.

She knelt next to his bed, placing a gentle hand a little way below his ear. She hadn't touched him much in all the time that she had known him, and took a moment to turn over how it felt to do so in her head. His skin was hot. If Y/N didn't know any better, she would have guessed he'd just returned from sprinting around the block in his pyjamas before getting into bed and falling asleep. He probably had been sprinting, not with his physical form but in his mind, fleeing from some unimaginable horror.

 _'What scares this man?'_ , Y/N half-heartedly pondered.

Y/N never asks Sherlock about his past. Obviously it hadn't been rich in joy. She spares him the chore of reliving it, but at moments like these Y/N can't help but wonder about the images his brain holds, the information he could deliver, the stories he could spin.

 _'A fascinating mind'_ , she thought absently.

The angle of his jawline, not as a sharp close up, fit snugly in the palm of her hand. She ran her thumb over the side of his face, the pad of it taking in the feel of this part of him she'd never touched; stubble below his tissue-paper soft skin like sand caught between two pages in a book. 

Sherlock stirred, and Y/N retracted her hand.

"Sherlock," she'd said it in a tone she'd heard lovers use on television. She hadn't meant to.

He whimpered again and she was reminded of his pain. A pain she ached to relieve.

"Sherlock. You're having a nightmare." The word 'darling' was just behind her lips, concentration needed to keep hold of it, prevent it from slipping out.

In a flurry of limbs, he awoke, clawing up the bed until he was in a sitting position as if the sheets were the bonds of a snake's coils that had held him captive before it almost swallowed him whole. Sherlock doesn't usually look entirely human. His skin is always just a shade too pale, irises holding a little too much light, limbs moving in such a way that makes even sceptics doubt whether he was one-hundred per cent Homosapien. Now, however, he looks more human than Y/N had ever seen him. Eyes wild as they darted about the room, that drowsy vacancy behind them clearing, replaced with the confusion of a brain thrust, unprepared, into cognisance.

When he saw Y/N, sitting there, crouched on his floor, a living, breathing anchor to which he could tie his racing mind, he threw himself forward, wrapping her torso in a tight hug.

Surprising even herself at the speed in which she recovered from this; Y/N held him.

He gripped back, his pointed nose burrowing into the crook of her neck, the force of his eagerness almost pushing Y/N backwards onto the floor.

"It's alright, I've got you," she muttered, stroking a hand over his hair. Despite this being one of the few hugs the two had ever shared, the thoughts flooding Y/N's head at present were more along the lines of 'thank God he's awake enough to remember not to grip me too tightly' rather than 'he smells nice' or contemplating the feel of him being so close. "You were just dreaming, it's all over now." Y/N wasn't sure if what she was saying was helping, or even managing to penetrate the fog of fear Sherlock was currently wandering around in.

The detective hadn't let go of her, his body twisted and sort of leaning over the side of the bed to get at her embrace.

In an effort to give him better access to the comfort he so clearly needed, Y/N---still cradling him---stood, and awkwardly manoeuvred herself over Sherlock's legs and into the other side of his bed.

He shifted closer to her until his thigh pushed against hers. He hadn't released her, his long, solid arms still encompassing her, but less tightly now. Where before he'd gripped as if letting go meant plummeting to his doom, presently his pressure was that of someone in recovery. Someone who'd already plummeted, fallen, flailing, spiralling out of control, the feeling of it still fresh in their mind.

Acting on some instinct, some deeply-rooted intelligence passed down a line of mothers stretching through history, Y/N gentled him. "You were just dreaming, you're safe now. I'm here now."

Sherlock repositioned himself, somehow managing to without causing a break in their cuddle. A memory nudged at Y/N's brain of last winter. She'd been walking home from the supermarket and seen a woman holding a baby struggling to put her own shopping into the boot of her Volvo. Y/N had offered to hold the child while she did so, to which the woman had seemed grateful, and shown Y/N how. The baby's face had creased with malcontent at being separated from its mother, tiny hands reaching out to grab at her, bottom lip wobbling with the onset of tears. So the mother had shown Y/N how to rock the baby gently from side to side by swaying her upper body, which---as if by magic---had instantly soothed the infant. Y/N did this now, moving Sherlock back and forth rhythmically. It seemed to help, because she felt his torso expand, then contract with a sigh.

From over his shoulder, Y/N watched the slender minute-hand of Sherlock's bedside clock fall from the three to the four. Five minutes of just rocking him, turning their intertwined bodies into a pendulum, flooding his body with calm via hypnotic rhythm.

She waited until the minute-hand was pointing at the eight, then removed her hands from him.

Sherlock's muscles stiffened like she'd ripped a plaster from his delicate alabaster skin, and it pained her.

She kissed his forehead. "It's okay, I'm not leaving you, I'm just going to pull the covers up. Okay?" She waited for his nod of consent, his limbs unfurling like the shy bud of a flower, enough for her to lean down the bed, taking the duvet in her hands. The sheet was so tangled that the stuffing had been squeezed---like toothpaste---to the very bottom, leaving Sherlock's ankles bound in fabric twisted until it was as taught as rope.

"Lift your feet up," she instructed, gently.

He did, and she worked at disentangling him, released him from his own bounds. She had to exit the bed to shake out his duvet, his pale eyes watching her fixedly, body unmoving, lips parted, ready to call her back were she to show any hint at leaving.

Without thinking---without asking if he'd like her to---Y/N climbed back onto Sherlock's mattress. It didn't matter, though, because he enveloped her in a hug, his nose finding the crook of Y/N's neck and burrowing there, clearly glad for her return.

She repeated nothings to him, lines uttered so much that they lost all meaning, syllables melting into one comforting string of affection.

...

Over time, Sherlock had loosened his hold. His body filtered out the remaining adrenaline from his blood, leaving him fatigued and aching. Y/N noticed that she was supporting a lot of his weight now, and pulled out of the cuddle, taking the sides of his face in her hands. Sherlock gave her a lopsided sleepy smile, and she kissed his forehead again, him ready for it this time and tipping his head forward like a cat seeking out its owner's palm.

"Do you want to try to go to sleep now?" Y/N asked.

Sherlock still had one hand on her hip, and its grip tightened.

With one finger curled under his chin, Y/N directed his gaze back to hers. "I'll stay with you, if you want."

Besides the odd 'thank you' or 'I'm fine', Sherlock hadn't said very much, probably _couldn't_ say very much, his throat recovering from its earlier workload. His voice was croaky at present; where usually it flowed like smooth silk, it now caught like brittle winter leaves, breaking as he twisted it around his tongue. "You don't have to." Which was a lie. He wanted her to very badly.

Sounding determined and confident, the first time she'd been those things in---well, ever, Y/N nodded conclusively. "I'm going to. Shall we keep the light on, or off?" Mainly for his benefit, she added: "I usually like them on."

The corners of Sherlock's lips twitched upwards gratefully as he replied, "On. Please." and settled down with his head on the pillow that Y/N had fluffed for him.

She mirrored his actions but on the opposite side of the bed, noticing something flicker over his expression as she did so, igniting like a lit match touched to the wick of a candle behind his eyes. "What's wrong?"

Cheekbones dusted with a hint of a blush, Sherlock cleared his throat, hesitating with a sweet mien of vulnerability. "Nothing's wrong. I just wondered if you...wanted to come over here."

"Over there?" Although she knew what he meant.

"Yeah. You know. To cuddle?" He choked out the last word, heart forcing it past the barrier his logic had built to try keep it in.

Y/N couldn't help smiling; he's being too cute. "Sure." She wasn't sure why it was so easy at that moment to shuffle closer to him, settle into the space against his body he'd created by lifting his arm. But it was, and she did so as if it were second nature.

**...**

The next morning, Y/N woke before Sherlock. She knew that it was morning because a weak line of watery sunlight was filtering through the gap in the curtains and faintly illuminating a narrow patch of the floor. It was not Y/N's floor. She knew this because his carpet is a little trodden down from extensive wear, whereas---because she hasn't been staying in the guest bedroom for very long---the carpet in her room was still plush and bouncy underfoot. Y/N watched a speck of dust flow lazily down the column of light and settle onto the floor.

Sherlock shifted behind her in his sleep. He'd curled himself around her back, one arm snaking under her pillow so his hand dangled off the side of the bed. He had his other one---his hand, that is---resting on her waist. Every time he breathed in, slowly and deeply, his chest nudged Y/N's shoulder blades under the covers.

Y/N stopped thinking about her bedroom carpet, and the speck of dust, and instead focused her gaze on this. The fact that she was being cuddled by her flatmate, in his bed, and she didn't mind. Her face wasn't uncomfortably hot with a flush, her lungs were maintaining a steady rhythm rather than erratically gulping for oxygen. She was not only content within his embrace, she...enjoyed it. Treasured it, the security of his strong limbs, the surprising heat of his body.

Despite the possibility of another nightmare, Sherlock had fallen asleep very quickly. He'd once told her that he struggles to become unconscious while on his back; but last night it had been a mere matter of minutes before Y/N's head was rising and falling on his torso with his deep, drawn-out breaths. He'd slept right through, too, and so had Y/N, which was new.

When she'd offered to stay in Sherlock's bed, she had had a passing thought that went along the lines of ' _guess I'll just have to pull an all-nighter'._ She hadn't expected to sleep, she'd imagined just laying next to the detective, guarding him like some kind of sleep spirit until the sun rose. Even in her own bed it was a kerfuffle to drift off, and then she would usually awaken every now and again if something makes a noise, like the fridge motor starting up, a car driving past, the pipes expanding.

This refreshed feeling was new to her.

There was a squat cuboid-shaped clock on the bookshelf opposite Y/N, but it was at an angle that made it difficult to make out the numbers. She thought it said eight-fifteen, but she wasn't sure.

Straining her eyes to read the clock was giving her a headache, so she let her gaze fall onto something closer to herself; Sherlock's hand that was dangling off the side of the bed. Even for his height, his hands are large. They are mainly fingers, and those are mainly bone. Long, nimble. Good for sewing, and piano, if he could ever find enough interest in it to learn. Y/N has to admit that she likes his hands, watching them as they completed whatever task they'd been set with finesse and dexterity. She often gave him puzzles to play with, enjoying his confusion almost as much as the little dance his fingers put on as they flicked about the pieces.

Sherlock's fingers weren't dancing at the moment, though. Just twitching feebly with a dream every now and again.

As comfortable as she was, Y/N decided to get up. She told herself the reason for this was because she had had the genius idea of waking her friend with a fried breakfast, but it was actually because she was embarrassed of him waking up whilst cuddling her. While she let him cuddle her. She didn't want him to see her being so vulnerable, so relaxed. She's not sure why.

So she gently eased herself out of his bed and padded to the kitchen.

Y/N watched the eggs she was frying blister away in their pan, bubbles rising in the goo then popping with a crack. She hadn't noticed someone come up behind her, bare feet slapping unevenly on the tiled floor as they stumbled sleeping over to where she was standing.

Two long arms wrapped themselves around Y/N's waist, someone's body coming up close behind her, instinct causing Y/N's muscles to tense, although she knew who it was. It was because of this---her knowing who it was---that prevented her from smacking the assailant around the head with her frying pan.

She was being hugged.

By Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock felt her reaction against his front, and pulled away as if he'd been electrocuted. "Sorry. I did it because I wanted to say thank you. For helping me sleep, and comforting me...and everything. I thought that after last night that it would be okay."

Y/N swallowed the lump of embarrassment that had blossomed in her throat, and busied herself with flipping the eggs. The shock of the hug had been so distracting she'd left it a little too late, and had to unstick the eggs from the base of the pan with the spatula, making them hiss irritably. "It is okay. I just wasn't ready."

She didn't sound very convincing, so Sherlock wilted damply with guilt.

Y/N hated it, and tried to distract him. "I'm glad you slept well. Did I wake you? I was going to bring your breakfast in for you."

Sherlock's face lit up, the smell of eggs licking about the inside of his nose, down to the back of his throat and making him realise how empty his stomach felt. "That's for me?"

Y/N gave him a smile, the sight of his obvious joy washing away the awkwardness of the past few moments in a tidal wave of affection. "Yeah. Take a seat, it's nearly done."

Y/N sat opposite Sherlock once she had served him his meal. She was glad to see him eat, and watched with amusement as he consumed it, noticing a distinct pattern in the way that he did so. She liked how his eyes glowed with delight when he moved onto the next thing, as if he'd forgotten it was there and had just then suddenly remembered. She had set him some toast out on a separate plate, along with a saucer of honeycomb that oozed it's contents slowly onto the china. Sherlock always saved this until last, spreading the honey onto his toast, finishing it, then ending the meal by popping the remaining comb in his mouth.

Waiting for him to finish his mouthful, she collected up the few dregs of courage that she owned, and asked, gently: "Do you want to talk about it?"

Sherlock looked up from where he was scraping his knife against the saucer that the honey had been on, trying to get the last remaining drops. "About what?"

"You know," Y/N prompted uncomfortably. "What you were dreaming about."

Sherlock watched the strands of honey stretch between his knife and the plate. "Not really."

"Okay. I understand."

A few moments of silence passed. Sherlock licked his knife, sliding his pointy tongue down the length of it in a way that made Y/N blush.

She had been distracted by this when he pulled her from her daydream with a quiet:

"Y/N?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. Really. It helped. Not just having you comfort me...or sharing my bed. But the...cuddling, too." His cheekbones had gone a light pink. "Please don't tell anyone about it."

"I won't. If you don't tell anyone I enjoyed it."


End file.
